


Urbansong

by stripeysheepsocks



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:43:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stripeysheepsocks/pseuds/stripeysheepsocks
Summary: Unfinished alternate universe - where Menolly is an urban runaway trying to break into the electronic dance scene.(my deepest apologies to actual electronic dance scene artists for glaring errors. Glerrors.).





	Urbansong

She stumbled out into the street, clutching her backpack and a bag of food that would insist on rustling. Ice dragons flew overhead, and the ambient temperature was cooler than she had expected. She wondered briefly if she should go back inside to grab an extra sweater, but then shook her head and kept walking. Chances were it was about to get warm again. The sun had set maybe half an hour earlier, and when she snuck a glance upward she could see the dragons were already winging their way north, north to whatever lair they considered their home. 

She walked past the padlocked gates of the school. The mural on the front had been graffiti'ed long since, and she at first averted her eyes from the profaniteis scrawled across the walls. But then she decided there were worse things than poor taste and looked at the wall. Once she had decided to ignore the cuss words (which she couldn't really, but she thought of her mother's snide remarks about street kids and set her jaw) she noticed there were other things painted onto the wall. Cars and skeletons and cats, and occasionally the curling tail of something that might have been a dragon. No one actually would paint a dragon, of course, that was just asking for trouble. But now she could see, scattered widely throughout, the hints and vestiges of those who live under the shadow.   
**

The hall was poorly lit, making it hard to see when one was about to step in a puddle of sticky, half-dried beer. It was loud, which made it hard to hear oneself think, much less hear anyone else talking. Menolly touched her earplugs to make sure they were firmly set. They muted the harsh blare of the speakers to a tolerable level, perhaps on level with a train passing one street over rather than standing directly below an accelerating 747. Beauty on her shoulder was fluttering slightly as they were jostled by unheeding dancers. The firelizard wrapped herself a little more firmly around Menolly's neck, not quite tight enough to choke but enough to reduce her profile. She wound her way through the crowds until she reached the DJ booth, where Mirrim was currently sitting with a pair of headphones. 

Mirrim's songlizard was perched on her shoulder, intermittently mouthing the top of her headphones with a thoughtful expression. The little dragon had her earflaps flat to her head and a little halo of fluffed out feathery scales further overlapping. Mirrim gestured for Menolly to sit down in the opposing chair, where a second mixing table was as yet not activated. Menolly looked down at Beauty and saw that this little lizard too had fluffed out her ear flaps, giving her a look not unlike Mirrim's oversized headphones.

Mirrim made a few more adjustments at her mix table, adding a heavy bass riff to an already pounding beat. Menolly though that the song could really do with a break soon, but it was Mirrim's piece and no one in the hall seemed to notice one way or another. 

Mirrim turned back to Menolly and handed her a hefty set of headphones even larger than Mirrim's own. Menolly tapped her ears, gesturing at her earplugs. Mirrim grinned. "Leave them in" she mouthed, gesturing to put on the headphones. 

Menolly was shocked at how suddenly quiet the hall felt with the headset in place. It was like diving into a deep pool of -- not quite silence, but definitely muffled distance. 

"Can you hear me?" Mirrim said, grinning at Menolly's shocked expression. Her voice came through crystal clear and as though they were having a conversation in a recording studio. "Nice, aren't they?"

"This is amazing," Menolly said. She looked at the mixing table. "But how do you--?"

"Easy," Mirrim said. She touched a few dials and Menolly heard the clear tones of the music sounding within a pleasant decibel range. It was loud enough to hear clearly but not too loud to drown out conversation with Mirrim. 

"You want to try some mixing?" Mirrim said.

"Are you sure?" Menolly said. "I don't want to interrupt --" 

"Girl, you cray? Those party crowds out there don't care a dot so long as their bass keeps booming. I've got the bass line protected, so go wild."

Menolly looked at the mixing table in front of her. Whatever Mirrim had done had turned the table on too, and she gazed at the controls for a minute, figuring out where it sorted the different lines to and how it varied from the basic mix table in the school music room. She could see it had an entire extra section for synth, and that the loops were plentiful enough to build an entire orchestra off from. Some of the pieces she only recognized from the add-ons that she'd downloaded onto the tablet - nothing she'd ever handled in person. 

She started out by scaling down everything but Mirrim's bass beat, but didn't let it sit too long. She added one long, mid-tone waver that reminded her of the ice dragon sweeps, and set up a high rapid ticka-ticka to carry in the loops she meant to add on. She scaled down the overall volume for a moment, letting the real noise of the crowd filter through for a moment - she had to lift the headphone from one ear to make sure she hadn't completely shut the music out of range, but the bass beat was still there, palpable in the chest. She brought in another sweeping crescendo like an ice dragon making a pass, tapering it off and filling in with a swirling set of loops that sounded almost celtic in their complexity. 

Mirrim gave her a thumbs up and added in her own line of synth, something based off a violin. Menolly got a balanced set of loops going that Mirrim could swoop in and out of, and then Mirrim tapered off and pointed at a slider bar near the top of the board.


End file.
